Demolition drawing example, xref question?

[ALUX]

First off, this is a school assignment.

 

So I am having trouble moving forward with my demolition plan. First I started out with a Floor plan and then xrefd it to my new Furniture plan drawing. For my demolition plan do I edit the original Floor plan to add the new room or do I xref the new room? She also wants to see the old Floor plan and the demo plan in two different viewports in paper space.

 

I hope that all makes sense, thanks.

[Organic]

I personally wouldn't use xrefs at all.

 

Good layer management is able to achieve all of this easily. Lets look at the walls first off. Put all your walls on a Walls layer. Then place the walls which are to be demolished on a Walls_demolished layer. Then draw your proposed walls on a Walls_proposed layer [all of this is being done in model space at scale 1:1].

 

Then setup your paperspace sheet layouts and viewports. Sheet 1 is Existing Floor Plan, and in the viewport you are showing the Walls and Walls_demolished layers, while viewport freezing the Walls_proposed layer (i.e. not showing it). Then on Sheet 2, Proposed Floor Plan, in the viewport you are showing the Walls and the Walls_proposed layers, while the Walls_demolished layer is viewport frozen.

 

Then the same process is used to show proposed/demolished fences, a proposed kitchen renovation, proposed servicing etc...

 

The method above is

1) Simple to use. You can come back to the drawing in 3 years time and instantly know what is going on layer wise.

2) Provided good layer practices are invoked (entities having their colour, linetype properties etc set to By Layer) and through good use of viewport overrides, you have lots of control over the drawing when you have many different views in many different sheets showing different things. For a simple existing/proposed/demolition plan, it may seem like overkill, but once you have a 60 page engineering set (all showing different parts of the same model), it is extremely useful.

[CyberAngel]

If your assignment mandates the xref, you can do it that way just as easily. Typically, you xref older drawings into newer, so you would start with the demo plan and xref it into the construction plan. In the demo drawing you'll have one set of layers that will show the existing features and another set that shows the demolition. In the construction plan you'll turn off the set of demolition layers and add a set of construction layers, while the existing layers will be common to both. If you later add utility plans, say for electrical and plumbing, you can xref the construction drawing into a third drawing and add another set of layers.

 

The benefit of doing it this way is when you work in model space. Your viewports may each have a subset of layers turned off, but in model space they all have to stay on (you can't turn on a layer in paper space if it's off in model space). When you have two or three sets of overlapping layers, along with the associated annotation, it can get confusing in a hurry. Ratchet that up to 8 or 10 sets, and xrefs start to look pretty good.

[Currahee]

First off, this is a school assignment.

 

So I am having trouble moving forward with my demolition plan. First I started out with a Floor plan and then xrefd it to my new Furniture plan drawing. For my demolition plan do I edit the original Floor plan to add the new room or do I xref the new room? She also wants to see the old Floor plan and the demo plan in two different viewports in paper space.

 

I hope that all makes sense, thanks.

 

IMO, I would Xref it in, but I am just used to doing Xrefs it in Architecture.

 

With working with layers if you give the teacher the drawing whats going to happen if he doesnt know what layer is supposed to be on what? If you xRef it in you have an overlapping drawing (the way xrefs are supposed to be used as). We learn this in a large number of people working on one file. I ask, what if we (100 people) were working on your drawing? We would all need the "layer" rules. But with each part of a xref we all could change a drawing, all of our drawings could be changed and all could work off each others drawings........JMO

Edited December 25, 2012 by Currahee

[ammobake]

One option is to start with the existing floor plan (XREF it in if you want or just copy/paste) and just hatch the walls you want layered on a "Demolition" layer or something similar.

 

I tend to think about drawings in a very broad/general way. If you make a "wall demolition" layer, would it apply to doors? windows? To most of us who have done this a while it's more straightforward but for some others it isn't always so.

 

Also, keep in mind that Floor plans and architectural plans in general are conceptual and 99% of the time what is built is a little different than what is planned/drawn.

 

Personally, I would save a new file for the new construction portion, because you will have to start with the original floor plan, delete the content to be demolished, save the new file (careful not to overwrite) then draw in the new walls, doors, etc.. I usually also keep the new construction on a separate layer and a different hatch pattern.

 

I usually will use standard diagonal hatching for demolition and cross/box hatch pattern for the new construction.

 

Somewhere near the floor plan I will draw a box, hatch it, and next to it label that pattern as "demolition" or "new construction". That way it is visible on the final sheet and clearly defines what the hatching represents.

 

Getting involved with XREF's can be extremely frustrating so I typically avoid those! Let's say a coworker of mine accidentally renames my project folder.. Even if they didn't change the name of the folder, I might have to go back and re-define all the XREF's for every CAD file in that folder. OMG what a nightmare!

 

It's just easier to keep everything in one file, one drawing set but that's just me.

 

Plus, let's say a contractor needs my CAD file. If I have 10 XREF's I now have file size to worry about and it might not be possible to email everything together even if compressed/zipped. If I keep it in one file, I email the CAD file and the contractor has the entire drawing set. I dont' have to write everything to a CD, explain to someone how the file is organized, then coordinate either driving somewhere to drop it off or having a contractor pick it up.

 

What I do is sometimes keep additional/extra DWG files related to the project separate. If I need to I can copy and paste as a block in the main DWG file to keep from accidentally editing anything and I can still turn off specific layers if I want.

 

rule of thumb for me: XREF's bad, blocks good.

 

-ChriS